Arimaa Forum
        (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/forum/cgi/YaBB.cgi)
      

        Arimaa >> Events >> 2013 World Championship
        
(Message started by: Fritzlein on Dec 1st, 2012, 10:33am)
Title: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 1st, 2012, 10:33am
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/wc/2013/
Registration is open!  Seven players have already signed up!  As you can tell by my exclamation points, I'm getting excited!!   ;D
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by UMDRevan on Dec 1st, 2012, 11:45am
Registered.  My goals for the tournament:

1) play some educational games
2) per game, make it beyond 20 moves ;D

As a new player, I expect to be thoroughly dismantled (like in this game here, have a good laugh over it http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=250824), but I expect this will be a great experience, so if there are other newbies out there, be sure to sign up!
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 1st, 2012, 12:13pm

on 12/01/12 at 11:45:07, UMDRevan wrote:
Registered.

Yay!


Quote:
As a new player, I expect to be thoroughly dismantled

As the rounds progress, you will get paired closer and closer to your strength, so don't completely despair.  You have a 300-point rating edge over the guy who registered after you (ddyer), so you might even get a chance to give a lesson.  :)
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by mistre on Dec 3rd, 2012, 10:16pm
Info posted on our Arimaa Facebook page.  We have 52 registered members over there, so hopefully it will drum up some interest and get a few more people to sign up.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 4th, 2012, 9:32pm

on 12/03/12 at 22:16:51, mistre wrote:
Info posted on our Arimaa Facebook page.  We have 52 registered members over there, so hopefully it will drum up some interest and get a few more people to sign up.

Thanks for doing that.  Please, everyone feel free to announce the tournament in other venues and/or forward the announcement e-mail.  When I am done with school in a week, I will see where all I can think of to post about it.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 14th, 2012, 10:55am

on 12/04/12 at 21:32:45, Fritzlein wrote:
When I am done with school in a week, I will see where all I can think of to post about it.

OK, I posted to boardgamegeek.com, chess.com, and boardspace.net.  Mistre posted to the Facebook group.  Other possibilities where I don't have an account and am not sure whether posting is appropriate would include the Google circle and goldtoken.com.  Does anyone who is a participant in those forums have an opinion on whether those would be good places to announce the torunament?  Also, any further suggestions?

I don't exactly remember how it went in 2011, but I'm pretty sure that the early signups are ahead of the pace from then, so I'm jazzed that we're probably going to break the participation record.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by mistre on Dec 14th, 2012, 11:11am
The big question is.... will either Chessandgo or hanzack be signing up?

If not, we are guaranteed a brand new Arimaa champion this year!
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 14th, 2012, 12:32pm
Hehe, if neither of them signed up, I would have a shot.  I should start preparing my backup plan now, where I pass off the role of TD at the last minute so that I can play for the glory!  :D
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Harren on Dec 16th, 2012, 8:51am
Hey all, on the main page I now see only an announcement for the computer championship, not the world championship. However, the register button for the computer championship does send me to the register page for the world championship (with already 24 players: nice !)

Perhaps this needs to be fixed. We wouldn't want people to think registration for world championship is no longer possible :)
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 16th, 2012, 10:14am

on 12/16/12 at 08:51:10, Harren wrote:
Hey all, on the main page I now see only an announcement for the computer championship, not the world championship.

I think this is a feature of the announcements rather than a bug.  The gameroom doesn't bug you with announcements that you have already seen, based (I believe) on the timestamp of the announcement.  If you collapse and re-expand the announcements, the World Championship announcement should still be there.

Anyway, I changed the timestamp on the WC announcement to the present in hopes that it would fool the gameroom into thinking it was a new announcement that nobody has seen yet.  Does it now display for you?


Quote:
However, the register button for the computer championship does send me to the register page for the world championship (with already 24 players: nice !)

Yes, in 2011 (the year we set the record with 33 participants) I don't think we had 24 registered until December 28 or 29.  That's why I'm so optimistic that the present year will be a record.  :)
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Harren on Dec 16th, 2012, 1:28pm
Yes, now they both display for me, Fritz.

Your explanation makes sense, so maybe the missing world championship announcement was not a bug, but the fact that clicking on the Register button of the Computer Championship leads to the register page of the World Championship is a bug, I guess (not that I want to register for the computer championship :))
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Janzert on Jan 2nd, 2013, 12:29pm

on 12/16/12 at 10:14:15, Fritzlein wrote:
...in 2011 (the year we set the record with 33 participants)...


Yay, tied now and two days to go.

Janzert
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Hippo on Jan 2nd, 2013, 3:09pm

on 01/02/13 at 12:29:58, Janzert wrote:
Yay, tied now and two days to go.

Janzert


34 now :)
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Jan 4th, 2013, 6:12pm
Final registration is an even forty.  I'm so excited I can hardly see straight!
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by odin73 on Jan 5th, 2013, 6:32am
I think it was a great idea to lower the entrance fee significantly. This should be kept for the future.  8)
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Jan 5th, 2013, 6:12pm

on 01/05/13 at 06:32:18, odin73 wrote:
I think it was a great idea to lower the entrance fee significantly. This should be kept for the future.  8)

Thanks!  I expect, however, that the continuance of a large tournament depends 100% on volunteer effort, because Omar no longer has the time to make it happen by himself.  The tournament manager tool is a huge help, but I will definitely not be running the 2014 Arimaa World Championship.  Will someone else step forward as TD so that we can have another large tournament?  Time will tell.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by mistre on Jan 7th, 2013, 9:32pm
Ooh, I get to be in the opening match on Wednesday night!  This is going to be exciting!

Good luck everyone.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by ocmiente on Jan 8th, 2013, 12:42pm
I had a dream about the Arimaa World Championship this morning.  In my dream I was distracted by the usual work and family obligations, but was well aware that I had a game coming up this Saturday at 2:00pm.  Unfortunately, when I went to the gameroom on Saturday I was an hour late for the game!  Apparently, the time I saw for my game was an hour off for some reason, maybe daylight savings or something.  I don't know.

I figured it was worth mentioning since this has happened to in the past.

In the gameroom, you can double check your game time by clicking on your name in the 'My Games' section and it will show the number of hours until your match.  If this isn't consistent with what you see as the game time, you might need to change your time zone settings or something.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by odin73 on Jan 8th, 2013, 3:22pm
Ocmiente, that´s a very good hint!

I just checked that for my game at Sunday and discovereed that it will take place an hour earlier as indicated!

Everybody should check the correct game time!


Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by novacat on Jan 8th, 2013, 4:17pm

on 01/08/13 at 12:42:13, ocmiente wrote:
In the gameroom, you can double check your game time by clicking on your name in the 'My Games' section and it will show the number of hours until your match.  If this isn't consistent with what you see as the game time, you might need to change your time zone settings or something.

Be careful with the number of hours till your match.  I just checked and it was an hour off (4 days, 21 hours), but I think this is because it was 4 days, 21 hours, and 55 minutes and the minutes are rounded off.

The window that opens when you click your name also shows you what time it is in YLT (your local time).  Make sure this time is correct and the game time should be correct.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Jan 9th, 2013, 11:16am
Once the game is less than a day away, the countdown displays minutes as well, removing the confusion.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Jan 13th, 2013, 3:24pm
For the record, the first round got off to a galloping start.  Aaaa got some great crosstables going on the event report wiki.  We had nearly blanket live audio commentary, thanks to clyring, supersamu, Arimabuff, Adanac, and perhaps others who showed up without signing up?   We had several successful audio recordings for posterity, although video recording turned out to be more of an issue.

The peak attendance numbers for the first week were 34 players on-line, 23 in chat, and 33 listening to the radio.  The chat room was buzzing all week long.  This tournament is a truly communal event.  I am pleased as punch to see such participation already in the preliminaries.

Of course, it wouldn't be real life if there weren't a few unforeseen technical glitches.  Sixteen of the twenty games were decided on the board, but three timed out and one game was not played because the players did not show up.  One of the timeouts was due to a poor Internet connection on the player's end, another was due to the player having his volume turned down, and the third was at the end of the longest game of the round.

The one unplayed game was Brendan_M vs. Zkid.  Neither arrived within fifteen minutes, triggering an automatic double-forfeit.  However, Brendan_M arrived forty-five minutes after the hour, thinking he was fifteen minutes early for his game.  The automated e-mail informing him of his game time in his local time zone was off by one hour, because the gameroom did not know Brendan_M's correct time zone.

After much deliberation and discussion in the chat room, it seemed the best course of action was to award Brendan_M a forfeit win.  The incorrect game time can be considered a server error.  My intent was to treat server errors either with an immediate game restart if possible, or a double-bye if a restart would have to be delayed.  A double-bye seemed incorrect given that Zkid never arrived, and it emerged that giving one player a bye and the other a forfeit is not technically possible.  The actual result could be indeed be considered the result of a restart one hour later, when Brendan_M then won by forfeit because Zkid was absent.

I would find it unacceptable to set a precedent that is easily open to abuse.  A player could intentionally set his gameroom timezone off by an hour in order to have an excuse for up to an hour of tardiness.  To close this loophole, I will give game times for all future rounds in the UTC time zone, and players will be responsible for converting it to local time.

I made one other ruling on the spot.  Browni3141 vs. herima was marked as abandoned seven minutes after the hour.  This is a server malfunction I have never seen before.  The game was not started, and could not have been started, because herima was not yet seated.  I am not sure why the server intervened to end a non-started game at that time; hopefully Omar can investigate and determine the cause.  In any case,  herima arrived before the fifteen-minute forfeit deadline, so I created a second game, which was then played to completion with no further hiccups.

Finally, when hull left the chat room before his game, he somehow accidentally logged back in.  The other folks in the chat room astutely did not make comments about hull's game, so there is no ruling to make.

Advice to players for round two:

* Enter your time preferences before the Monday 24:00 UTC deadline.
* Make sure your game room time zone is correct
* Convert correctly from UTC to your local time; the UTC time is authoritative.
* Leave the chat room before playing.
* Don't send your move at the last second, in case your Internet connection is flaky.
* Keep your volume on so that you can hear the clock ticking.
* Remember to have fun!
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by 99of9 on Jan 13th, 2013, 7:14pm
Can you send local times as something like "indicative only", along with the authoritative UTC?  For those of us who know our gameroom time is correct?  I'd be more likely to make errors converting from UTC if that's all I get.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Jan 14th, 2013, 9:21am

on 01/13/13 at 19:14:33, 99of9 wrote:
Can you send local times as something like "indicative only", along with the authoritative UTC?  For those of us who know our gameroom time is correct?  I'd be more likely to make errors converting from UTC if that's all I get.

OK, maybe only giving UTC is going overboard, but I will have to find a way to make it absolutely clear that showing up late because you relied on YLT results in a forfeit.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by chessandgo on Jan 14th, 2013, 10:02am

on 01/13/13 at 15:24:25, Fritzlein wrote:
and 33 listening to the radio.


I think the radio count was 34 when I joined last night.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by aaaa on Jan 14th, 2013, 2:39pm

on 01/14/13 at 09:21:21, Fritzlein wrote:
OK, maybe only giving UTC is going overboard, but I will have to find a way to make it absolutely clear that showing up late because you relied on YLT results in a forfeit.

I actually think that making people go through the effort of converting UTC on their own should lower the chance of any future foul-up. You may want to add a standard warning about daylight saving time though.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Jan 14th, 2013, 5:32pm

on 01/14/13 at 10:02:19, chessandgo wrote:
I think the radio count was 34 when I joined last night.

Hmmm, there were 34 on-line at one points that I saw, but the radio saves the peak number, so checking it at the end of the day, as I did, should be authoritative, no?  Checking the chat archives, nobody reported 34 peak listeners, although I did report the 34 peak simultaneous logins.  Anyway, this is a record we will hopefully break soon, so it shouldn't matter too much what the high-water marks were on the first round.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Boo on Jan 15th, 2013, 2:08am
If the UTC is the official game time, I would like to see not only in the email, but also in the scheduler (one more column next to YLT), also in the Scheduled Game count down window.
BTW I find it confusing when I see my game scheduled at "Sun 10:00 pm". Is it YLT or UTC? Would be more clear if it was "Sun 8:00 pm UTC (Sun 10:00 pm YLT)"
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Arimabuff on Jan 15th, 2013, 2:20am
I hope the time given in the game room for the games is still the local one.

Is it?
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by chessandgo on Jan 15th, 2013, 6:03am
Oh ok, sorry.

Btw the pairing email says "Your Round 2 game against  has been scheduled for Thr 12:00 am UTC" when one gets a bye, don't be surprised for the next rounds!
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Adanac on Jan 15th, 2013, 6:56am

on 01/15/13 at 02:08:46, Boo wrote:
If the UTC is the official game time, I would like to see not only in the email, but also in the scheduler (one more column next to YLT), also in the Scheduled Game count down window.
BTW I find it confusing when I see my game scheduled at "Sun 10:00 pm". Is it YLT or UTC? Would be more clear if it was "Sun 8:00 pm UTC (Sun 10:00 pm YLT)"


I like this idea.  For players that have never had a problem with YLT, this seems a lot more convenient.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Jan 15th, 2013, 9:01am

on 01/15/13 at 02:20:41, Arimabuff wrote:
I hope the time given in the game room for the games is still the local one.

Is it?

Yes, if you see your correct local time in the upper left of the game room.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Jan 15th, 2013, 9:28am

on 01/15/13 at 02:08:46, Boo wrote:
If the UTC is the official game time, I would like to see not only in the email, but also in the scheduler (one more column next to YLT), also in the Scheduled Game count down window.

Good ideas.  Alas, I can't change the way the game room works and I am loath to put yet more requests in Omar's lap.  I guess no matter how much I dislike time zones and wish that the whole world would just use UTC, I am going to run up against practical obstacles and need to compromise.


Quote:
BTW I find it confusing when I see my game scheduled at "Sun 10:00 pm". Is it YLT or UTC? Would be more clear if it was "Sun 8:00 pm UTC (Sun 10:00 pm YLT)"

Ah, sorry, I thought in the e-mail I did say, "Note that this time is expressed in UTC this round...".  But it should also have a UTC directly after it to make it even more clear.

One thing I feel strongly about is that I can't ever give YLT without a caveat that it could be wrong and that relying on it can result in forfeit.  When we discussed Brendan_M's case in chat, there was a strong consensus that it would not be fair to forfeit him since the server gave him the wrong time.  But the server CANNOT KNOW his correct local time.  There is no way to fix it so that YLT is guaranteed to be accurate.  And in that context, it is untenable to give people a free excuse for being late.  People who are late must be subject to forfeit, or the tournament will devolve into chaos.  When I give game times in YLT, I will only do it in a way where the given YLT time can be wrong, and even when it is wrong we will all meet in the chat room after the player shows up late and all agree, "Yes, he should lose by forfeit, even though the server gave him the wrong time."  If we can't  get that consensus, then I'm going to inconvenience everyone as much as I have to inconvenience them to put the responsibility of knowing the correct time on the players' shoulders.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Jan 15th, 2013, 9:56am

on 01/15/13 at 06:03:00, chessandgo wrote:
Btw the pairing email says "Your Round 2 game against  has been scheduled for Thr 12:00 am UTC" when one gets a bye, don't be surprised for the next rounds!

Oops, sorry, Jean.  Next time I can uncheck the player(s) with a bye so that they don't get a confusing e-mail saying they have a game against <blank>.  Enjoy your off week!  :)
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Boo on Jan 15th, 2013, 11:28am

Quote:
Quote:
BTW I find it confusing when I see my game scheduled at "Sun 10:00 pm". Is it YLT or UTC? Would be more clear if it was "Sun 8:00 pm UTC (Sun 10:00 pm YLT)"

Ah, sorry, I thought in the e-mail I did say, "Note that this time is expressed in UTC this round...".  But it should also have a UTC directly after it to make it even more clear.


I was talking about the arimaa.com server displaying game time in the "My games" and "Sceduled games" sections, and you answered about the email. :)
The point is if you change the official time zone to UTC, shouldn't it also be available in a gameroom? E.g. someone who is not reading emails might say "Server showed my game time incorrectly, thus I was late." or "I thought gameroom displays game time in UTC".
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Jan 15th, 2013, 11:37am

on 01/15/13 at 11:28:15, Boo wrote:
The point is if you change the official time zone to UTC, shouldn't it also be available in a gameroom? E.g. someone who is not reading emails might say "Server showed my game time incorrectly, thus I was late." or "I thought gameroom displays game time in UTC".

Yep, I think if I ruled the server, I would do everything in UTC, not try to guess the user's time zone, and not even permit the user to select a time zone.  There would be no such thing as a time zone.  I would enforce universal time for the whole world, the way it should be.  (Also everyone would have to speak Esperanto.  jk)  But it is Omar's server, and YLT is with us to stay.  Since the server tries to give YLT, I just have to work in that context.

Maybe focusing on UTC was not the most effective way to address the issue.  Maybe instead of saying "You must verify that UTC matches your YLT offest," I should instead say, "You must log in to the game room to verify that the time in the upper left-hand corner matches the time where you are."  Then I can include the same threats about it being the players' responsibility and forfeiting for being late, yadda yadda.

I'm open to different solutions as long as the solution includes everyone agreeing that a player who shows up late due to YLT being wrong should lose by forfeit anyway.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Jan 23rd, 2013, 7:54am
Round 2 went smoothly.  There were no forfeits; all of the players showed up on time.  Thank you, everyone, for your commitment to the tournament!

Sixteen of the nineteen games were decided over the board.  There was only one resignation, directly before forced goal, and two timeouts.  Unfortunately one of the timeouts was a due to loss of connection on the user's end.  I had no decisions to make as Tournament Director, which is a very comfortable feeling.

The server had a technical problem and was down for almost two hours.  We are very lucky this didn't overlap with any games.  The root cause is unknown.  Omar will accelerate his planned move of arimaa.com to a new server in case the outage was related to the present server being old.

I noticed 36 simultaneous logins on Saturday and 25 players in chat on Monday, both eclipsing our high-water marks from Round 1.  Unfortunately, I reset the radio relay before checking the number of peak radio listeners on Sunday, so I don't know whether we broke our first-round record on that score too.  In any case it was great to have some live audio commentary of nearly every game.  Thanks again to clyring and Arimabuff for their heroic commentary efforts.

There were four upsets in Round 2 as compared to only two upsets in Round 1.  There should be many more upsets in the coming round given that the games are getting paired more and more evenly.  I look forward to even more drama than we have already had.  :)
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Feb 10th, 2013, 11:46am
About two hours ago, I received the following message from aurelian.  I duplicate it here in the interests of transparency, so that everyone can know my decision and the thought process behind it.

=====
In the Game 256307 there is the possibility of an timer error.
First there where some technical dificulties regardingme pressing the "send move" button.
Secondly I have not wathced the timer closely because  of beeing focuset on the game butI think some issue haveoccuredduring the game, culminating in the final timing out.
If possible please check any server records.
A similar error was reported in this unofficial game http://arimaa.com/arimaa/games/jsShowGame.cgi?gid=256835&s=b.

Kindly  Aurelian.
=====

First, let me clarify that the intent of the rules is to immediately resume any game which times out due server error.  We would like such games to be decided over the board by continued play.  This is the primary reason that a Tournament Coordinator is on call for every game.

Second, I anticipated that there might be some reason that a game would time out due to server error, and that it would not be immediately restarted.  My intention in that case was to vacate the result and give both players byes before the next round started.

It never occurred to me that a player would ask for an investigation eight days after timing out, so I didn't say anything about it in the rules.  Since the rules are not explicit, I am in the uncomfortable position of enforcing a rule that I assumed without saying, namely that if the result of a game is not changed promptly, it can't be changed at all.  A responsibility rests on the involved player to immediately raise the possibility of server error, so that it can be investigated and dealt with in a timely manner.  In this case, the next round has been paired and partially played; it would be a grave disruption to now move someone from the Swiss section into the elimination section.

Thus, no matter what evidence exists that the server was at fault for aurelian's timeout in game 256307, I will not now change the result.  Even if it could be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that, for example, the server received move 35g in time but was too overloaded to process it, it is too late for such proof to affect the standings.

That said, I am curious what evidence would be present if we looked for it.  The game event log shows:

Code:
1359832465 [Sat Feb  2 19:14:25 2013] move 35b received from b [re7s he5w Dd6n hd5n]
1359832465 [Sat Feb  2 19:14:25 2013] after 35b, move used:14 wresv:131 bresv:145 game:4429
1359832657 [Sat Feb  2 19:17:37 2013] game finished with result b t

Thus three minutes and twelve seconds after Silver's last move, the game was recorded as a time win for Silver.  That is 192 seconds.  The stated Gold reserve of 131 seconds plus a 60-second move increment is 191 seconds.  Since a player may use all his remaining time, leaving zero seconds in reserve, it is as expected that the server would wait one additional second before recording a timeout.

The load averages logged on the server for the preceding several minutes were

Code:
19:18 load average: 1.42, 1.41, 1.37
19:17 load average: 1.37, 1.39, 1.36
19:16 load average: 1.33, 1.39, 1.36
19:15 load average: 1.41, 1.42, 1.38
19:14 load average: 1.40, 1.43, 1.38
19:13 load average: 1.32, 1.42, 1.37
19:12 load average: 1.51, 1.48, 1.39
19:11 load average: 1.55, 1.48, 1.39
19:10 load average: 1.52, 1.45, 1.38
19:09 load average: 1.45, 1.43, 1.37
19:08 load average: 1.78, 1.47, 1.39
19:07 load average: 1.40, 1.39, 1.36
19:06 load average: 1.46, 1.41, 1.36
19:05 load average: 1.51, 1.42, 1.36
19:04 load average: 1.49, 1.39, 1.35
19:03 load average: 1.46, 1.37, 1.34
19:02 load average: 1.37, 1.31, 1.32
19:01 load average: 1.38, 1.31, 1.32
19:00 load average: 1.29, 1.26, 1.31

The load average was never above 2.0, which for a four-processor machine means that it was running quite comfortably the whole time.

The connection logs from pingdom.com are:

Code:
Up      02/02/2013 19:18:49       274 ms       Falkenberg, Sweden
Up      02/02/2013 19:17:49       161 ms       Portland, OR
Up      02/02/2013 19:16:49       285 ms       Amsterdam 4, Netherlands
Up      02/02/2013 19:15:49       233 ms       Strasbourg 3, France
Up      02/02/2013 19:14:49       66 ms       Tampa, FL
Up      02/02/2013 19:13:49       265 ms       Madrid, Spain
Up      02/02/2013 19:12:49       381 ms       Zurich, Switzerland
Up      02/02/2013 19:11:49       142 ms       Phoenix, AZ
Up      02/02/2013 19:10:49       204 ms       Roubaix, France
Up      02/02/2013 19:09:49       393 ms       Falkenberg, Sweden
Up      02/02/2013 19:08:49       162 ms       Portland, OR
Up      02/02/2013 19:07:49       372 ms       Amsterdam 4, Netherlands
Up      02/02/2013 19:06:49       228 ms       Strasbourg 3, France
Up      02/02/2013 19:05:49       164 ms       Tampa, FL
Up      02/02/2013 19:04:49       282 ms       Madrid, Spain
Up      02/02/2013 19:03:49       268 ms       Zurich, Switzerland
Up      02/02/2013 19:02:49       160 ms       Phoenix, AZ
Up      02/02/2013 19:01:50       205 ms       Roubaix, France
Up      02/02/2013 19:00:49       379 ms       Falkenberg, Sweden

This shows a slowest ping time of 393 milliseconds, and indeed no ping times over 500 milliseconds for all of February 2, indicating that the server was quickly  accessible from many different locations.

These logs, of course, do not prove that there wasn't a technical problem.  It may well be that some sever issue occurred that is reflected neither in load average nor in ping times.  It could also be that some application error or lag time occurred on the client side.  If any such source of technical problems caused or contributed to a timeout, it is unfortunate, but regrettably tournament game results can't be changed except when there is evidence the arimaa.com server itself was at fault.

To return to my first point, if anyone suspects that they have timed out due to server error, please immediately page the Tournament Coordinator that is on call, so that the logs can be investigated while there is still the possibility of resuming the game and finishing it over the board on the spot.

Thanks,
Fritz
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by mistre on Feb 11th, 2013, 10:07pm
I'm curious to know.... If Browni3141 does not have connection problems vs Novacat and beat him - who would I have been paired with in Round 6?
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Janzert on Feb 11th, 2013, 10:12pm
I think that's pretty impossible to say mistre since there would be two rounds of cascading differences in pairing in between those two events.

Janzert
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by mistre on Feb 12th, 2013, 8:21am
Ok, what if the result stands but the performance ratings were not affected by the time out.  Does the pairing change then and is it possible to figure it out?
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by UMDRevan on Feb 12th, 2013, 10:01pm
Hey everyone,

I just wanted to apologize about missing the WC Round 5 match between myself and crazyharry.  I live in New England, so unfortunately I was without electricity for a few days due to the blizzard that swept through this past weekend.

Best luck to everyone for the remainder of the tournament.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Janzert on Feb 13th, 2013, 12:18am

on 02/12/13 at 08:21:28, mistre wrote:
Ok, what if the result stands but the performance ratings were not affected by the time out.  Does the pairing change then and is it possible to figure it out?


So the number of wins and losses for each player at the end of that round would be the same as what actually occured? At that point I would guess that the change in rating would still be enough for the pairing to change but I'm not positive. Someone could figure that out for sure but it's beyond what I can easily check.

Once you find a change that does change the pairing it is going to cascade into a growing number of scenarios that would cause differing opponents by the time you reach round 6.

Janzert
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Feb 13th, 2013, 7:42am

on 02/12/13 at 22:01:56, UMDRevan wrote:
Hey everyone,

I just wanted to apologize about missing the WC Round 5 match between myself and crazyharry.  I live in New England, so unfortunately I was without electricity for a few days due to the blizzard that swept through this past weekend.

Best luck to everyone for the remainder of the tournament.

Ouch; I'm sorry to hear about that.  I hope that you and yours were able to stay warm and unharmed.  I'm also pleased to learn that you were not in any way disenchanted with the tournament, and would have kept playing barring natural disaster.

I apologize that you were withdrawn rather than getting a Round 6 game.  In the past most people who miss a game and don't swing by soon after to explain end up dropping out of the tournament (and usually out of Arimaa) completely.  The rules are written as they are to minimize the chance of a player showing up at the scheduled time and waiting 15 minutes in vain.  I'm glad this isn't the case with you, and I hope you understand that we must guard against the more typical case.

Thanks for participating!
--Fritz
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by UMDRevan on Feb 14th, 2013, 8:23am

on 02/13/13 at 07:42:10, Fritzlein wrote:
Ouch; I'm sorry to hear about that.  I hope that you and yours were able to stay warm and unharmed.  I'm also pleased to learn that you were not in any way disenchanted with the tournament, and would have kept playing barring natural disaster.

I apologize that you were withdrawn rather than getting a Round 6 game.  In the past most people who miss a game and don't swing by soon after to explain end up dropping out of the tournament (and usually out of Arimaa) completely.  The rules are written as they are to minimize the chance of a player showing up at the scheduled time and waiting 15 minutes in vain.  I'm glad this isn't the case with you, and I hope you understand that we must guard against the more typical case.

Thanks for participating!
--Fritz


My family is doing alright; we had to leave our house for a few days, but other than inconvenience, no harm was done.

And don't worry about withdrawing me from the tournament, it's understandable from your perspective.

In any case, hopefully by next year, I'll be able to play games a bit more competitively.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by browni3141 on Feb 14th, 2013, 7:50pm
We use our gas stove to stay warm when the power goes out for several days due to a winter storm.

I'm sorry that you couldn't play in round six, UMDRevan.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Feb 17th, 2013, 4:24pm
There was some question in chat whether Hippo lost to Rmzna today on time or by forfeit.  The game logs show

1361131209 [Sun Feb 17 20:00:09 2013] w player joining
1361131210 [Sun Feb 17 20:00:10 2013] w player present
1361132163 [Sun Feb 17 20:16:03 2013] b player joining  

Since Hippo arrived more than 15 minutes late, he loses by forfeit.  It is a moot point as the tournament continues the same way in either case.  It is sad to see anyone lose on connection issues, and doubly so to see a high seed eliminated from the finals for this reason.

Also the top board this round was an extremely exciting game decided when rabbits lost connection.  At times like these I wish we didn't have to hold the World Championship over the Internet.  I have to keep reminding myself that without the Internet, there would be no World Championship of Arimaa.   :-/
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Feb 23rd, 2013, 10:07am
Well, school has been hammering me lately, so I haven't had as much time for the tournament.  The good news is that everything ran quite smoothly in my semi-absence.  One of my goals for this year is to demonstrate that a large tournament doesn't have to consume the life of the Tournament Director and cause him to completely burn out.  Much of the procedure is automated, the players generally do what they are supposed to do, and many community volunteers pitch in to help keep things on track.  (Shout out to aaaa for the wiki crosstable and clyring for tireless commentary.)  The fact that I can be TD while leading a somewhat normal life should make it less intimidating for someone else to volunteer as TD for 2014.

I wasn't able to be present for all of Round 6, but I noticed that for top board Boo vs. rabbits, there were 38 logged into the game room, 22 simultaneously in chat, and 30 listening to the live radio broadcast.  The excitement continues to build.

We have 17, 18, or 19 games left in the tournament, depending on whether the eventual winner loses zero, one, or two times.  We will try to guarantee recorded live commentary for each of those games; I would love to be one of those commentators myself, time permitting.  The slower time control makes the games higher quality and gives more opportunity to pontificate about strategies and speculate about upcoming moves.  Given the incredible games we have already had, I'm excited just thinking about what is still to come.

One additional bit of fun for the finals is the spectator contest.  You can win a cash prize on every game.  Sign up before the final round starts! http://arimaa.com/arimaa/wc/2013/predict/

Now that the number of finalists has been set, so have the prize payouts:

1 16102
2  8051
3  5367
4  4026
5  3220
6  2684
7  2300
8  2013
9  1789
10 1610
11 1464
12 1342
13 1239
14 1150

The prizes won't be paid out until after the tournament is over, even for eliminated players, because later games can affect the performance rating of eliminated players, and thus their final ranking.

Have fun, everyone, and cross your fingers for a minimum of technical difficulties!
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by aaaa on Feb 23rd, 2013, 11:10am
Although it works out this time, I'm curious to know how you would have handled the prize distribution if the rounded figures didn't add up exactly right.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Hippo on Feb 23rd, 2013, 4:49pm
I just wander what would happen if I were not expecting I lost on forfeit and I would start the game...

And what would happen if I would log two minutes earlier and played just one move ...

Anyways I have enjoyed the turnament even when I have not expect to leave it so early. See you next year:)
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Feb 23rd, 2013, 7:57pm

on 02/23/13 at 11:10:26, aaaa wrote:
Although it works out this time, I'm curious to know how you would have handled the prize distribution if the rounded figures didn't add up exactly right.

Donated the extra cent to arimaa.com?
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Feb 23rd, 2013, 8:01pm

on 02/23/13 at 16:49:56, Hippo wrote:
I just wander what would happen if I were not expecting I lost on forfeit and I would start the game...

Then you would have forfeited.


Quote:
And what would happen if I would log two minutes earlier and played just one move ...

Then you would have lost on time, unless you had kept playing.  Either way, the result and the pairing the next round would have been the same.


Quote:
Anyways I have enjoyed the turnament even when I have not expect to leave it so early. See you next year:)

Super, I'm glad you had a good time.  I was hoping you feel about the tournament the same way I do: it is worse than if the Internet were reliable, but better than if the Internet didn't exist.  I hope something like the current format happens again next year, and I hope you are able to play then too.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by aaaa on Feb 24th, 2013, 5:51am

on 02/23/13 at 19:57:43, Fritzlein wrote:
Donated the extra cent to arimaa.com?

That's certainly one way of going about things, but given that the prizes are supposed to be in proportion to each other, I myself think that the right course of action would have been to adjust the divisor to the point that the rounded figures would add up (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sainte-Lagu%C3%AB_method).
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Feb 24th, 2013, 7:46am

on 02/24/13 at 05:51:14, aaaa wrote:
That's certainly one way of going about things, but given that the prizes are supposed to be in proportion to each other, I myself think that the right course of action would have been to adjust the divisor to the point that the rounded figures would add up (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sainte-Lagu%C3%AB_method).

Makes sense.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Mar 4th, 2013, 1:54pm
I will be an hour or two late scheduling Round 8 tonight, unless another TC decides to step in and schedule at the standard time.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Adanac on Mar 4th, 2013, 2:18pm

on 03/04/13 at 13:54:28, Fritzlein wrote:
I will be an hour or two late scheduling Round 8 tonight, unless another TC decides to step in and schedule at the standard time.


I'll give it a shot.  If I have any difficulties, I'll let you know.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Mar 4th, 2013, 8:33pm
Thanks, Adanac.  It looks good.  As a special warning to you, DST happens in the U.S. and Canada shortly before your game.  To be clear, your game is scheduled for 11:00 UTC, which doesn't change.  Your Local Time is probably saying that the game is at 6:00, but it will actually be at 7:00 due to your clock moving forward an hour while UTC stands still.

Unfortunately, there is a possibility that the server, being located in the U.S., will wig out and move the scheduled game time by an hour.  If this happens, it needs to be rescheduled for 11:00 UTC by the TC on duty.  I would rather that not be me, since that is quite early relative to my sleep schedule, but I'll get up briefly to check the time if necessary.  I just want to be clear in advance as to when the game officially must happen.

Thanks again for running the scheduler!  
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Apr 14th, 2013, 11:18am
After a long run of no server issues, arimaa.com decided to crash in the middle of the potentially World-Champion-deciding game.  Go figure!  Boo lost on time when he lost connection.

By rule, the game timeout result cannot stand, since the server was having issues.  As TD, I saw the potential options as replaying the game from scratch, restoring the game from the final position, or restoring the game from the point at which the server began to have issues.  The latter is not provided for in the rules, but this situation made me think it should be added to the rules in 2014.  Fortunately,  my decision was made easy by the fact that both players reported being unaffected by server issues until the timeout happened.  Surely in such a situation all the played moves should count.

The players entered their time preferences for next week, and the scheduler chose the same game time as this week, namely 9:00 UTC on Sunday.  I have created a dummy game to make it easy for spectators/commentators to know when to be present, but that game will not be played.  Instead, the timed-out game will be restored from the final position with Boo to move.  To compensate for Boo's additional thinking time during adjournment, chessandgo will be awarded an extra six minutes of reserve thinking time.

In the intervening week, the players are allowed to analyze the position with any resources including computers and other players.  Spectators are allowed to publicly discuss the position, including who is winning and what strategies/moves each player should pursue.  However, I and my four fellow Tournament Coordinators will not participate in this discussion.

Adjournment creates uncomfortable possibilities of unfairness, but I judged adjournment to be less problematic than the unfairness inherent in arbitrarily invalidating moves that were played under proper tournament conditions.  Alas, technical failures will always create a situation that gives one player more advantage or disadvantage than the other.  All we can do is try to find the least bad resolution.

I would like to heartily thank both players for being calm and understanding about the server crash, and for being accepting of my ruling as to what should happen next.  Sporting behavior on the part of tournament participants makes being Tournament Director vastly easier than it would otherwise be.  Boo, chessandgo, you are both champions off the board as well as on!
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by omar on Apr 14th, 2013, 3:22pm
There is a cron job that backs up the main disk to a second disk and it runs at 5:23 am EDT. It seems like this combined with the spectator traffic on the server due to the game in session may have triggered the server to start thrashing.

Regarding resuming the game from an earlier move instead of the last move. I guess that could be done, but we are not setup to do that currently.

For situations where the game is to be resumed, it might be more fair if the player on move submits a sealed move (by email or PM) to the TD soon after it is decided that the game will be resumed. The TD can set when the sealed move must be submitted. When the game is resumed the player must play the sealed move. That way the player on move cannot benefit from a long thinking time and others discussing the position.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Apr 28th, 2013, 9:22am
Congratulation Jean, and everyone who played!  I feel proud to have smoothly run the biggest live Arimaa World Championship ever, but truly credit goes to the community.  Being TD would be an exhausting undertaking, except that everyone is so helpful and cooperative the tournament mostly runs itself.  It is a privilege to be part of Arimaa.

The final prize payouts are
chessandgo 16102
Boo  8051
Thiagor  5367
Nombril  4026
Brendan_M  3220
rabbits  2684
Adanac  2300
browni3141  2013
omar  1789
supersamu 1610
Alfons 1464
clyring 1342
99of9 1239
RmznA 1150
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Hippo on Apr 28th, 2013, 4:14pm
I must thank RmznA for his attempt to give me his 1150 as a compensation for connection problems ...
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Apr 28th, 2013, 8:05pm

on 04/28/13 at 16:14:04, Hippo wrote:
I must thank RmznA for his attempt to give me his 1150 as a compensation for connection problems ...

And while we're at it, let me thank browni3141 for tipping me for sponsoring him!
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by omar on Apr 28th, 2013, 10:52pm
Thanks everyone for making the WC such a successful event this year. I especially want to thank two people who put in a lot of effort.

Karl (Fritzlein), thanks so much for running the event this year. By running the tournament tool and radio relay you took a lot of load off me. I should have done more recordings and commentary, but I slacked off on that. I don't feel burned out after the WC this year and this is the first time where after the WC I feel like working on the next WC right away.

Matthew (clyring), thanks so much for all the commentary you did this year. It was truly amazing; I don't know how you did it.

There are many more people I want to thank and a lot more I want to say and not just for the WC but for the other events as well. So next Saturday I'm going to do a pod cast as the awards and recognitions ceremony for the events this year. If anyone else would like to say something during this time, please join teamSpeak and let me know ahead of time so I know to call on you. I hope you will be able to join in.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on Apr 28th, 2013, 11:48pm

on 04/28/13 at 22:52:25, omar wrote:
I don't feel burned out after the WC this year and this is the first time where after the WC I feel like working on the next WC right away.

Thanks, Omar.  Doing something I can do in order to spare you the burden so that you can do things only you can do makes me feel like my contribution has been efficient and worthwhile.  On to the next event!  
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Hippo on Apr 29th, 2013, 2:56pm

on 04/28/13 at 23:48:54, Fritzlein wrote:
Thanks, Omar.  Doing something I can do in order to spare you the burden so that you can do things only you can do makes me feel like my contribution has been efficient and worthwhile.  On to the next event!  


Yes thanks Fritzlein for the organization and for that much refreshing omar :).
See you both in next year championship ...
and thanks Janzert in advance ...
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Brendan_M on Apr 30th, 2013, 2:12pm
I'd also like to thank Fritzlein for organising the tournament. I really enjoyed playing and enjoyed that I had the chance to play so many players at a similar level to myself. The format was great

Thanks to clyring also for commentating on so many of my and others games

Finally congrats to chessandgo for winning again!
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by mattj256 on May 1st, 2013, 9:08am
I updated some of the information on Wikipedia related to the completed World Championships.  (I saw Fritzlein beat me to the punch for some of it.  Thanks Fritzlein!)  Is it possible for someone to update the World Championship page (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/wc/) or can that only be done by Omar?
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on May 1st, 2013, 11:28am

on 05/01/13 at 09:08:04, mattj256 wrote:
I updated some of the information on Wikipedia related to the completed World Championships.  (I saw Fritzlein beat me to the punch for some of it.  Thanks Fritzlein!)

Thanks for helping keep Wikipedia up to date.  I reverted one edit, apparently not by you, namely that the 2012 World Champion was hanzack, not Tarou Asou.  As I said on the Wikipedia talk page:  It is confusing to give the name of a former prime minister of Japan when there is no reason to believe that this is the real name of Arimaa player in question. It is one thing to respect the anonymity of the World Champion, and quite another to drag an innocent bystander into the mix.  


Quote:
Is it possible for someone to update the World Championship page (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/wc/) or can that only be done by Omar?

Only Omar, although it looks like it has been done now.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by chessandgo on May 1st, 2013, 2:18pm

on 05/01/13 at 11:28:35, Fritzlein wrote:
It is one thing to respect the anonymity of the World Champion, and quite another to drag an innocent bystander into the mix.  


Am I imagining a double meaning here? :)
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Fritzlein on May 1st, 2013, 3:10pm

on 05/01/13 at 14:18:03, chessandgo wrote:
Am I imagining a double meaning here? :)

I didn't intend a double meaning I don't know what two meanings you are thinking of.  What I meant was that the Arimaa Community shouldn't participate in dragging down Tarou Asou's name just because some joker entered that as a fake name for his account.

Here is my thought experiment:  If someone created a new account on arimaa.com and entered my name for his account to be funny, would I want folks to call him "Fritz Juhnke"?  No, I wouldn't.  On the contrary, I would be glad if everyone in the community called him by some other name instead of by my name.  I don't think we can or should require people to give their real names on arimaa.com, but having said that, it would be ridiculous to let anonymous jokers force us to misuse the names of real people.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by aaaa on May 1st, 2013, 3:24pm
I'm guessing chessandgo thought you made a subtle reference to his suspicion that hanzack is rabbits.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by mattj256 on May 1st, 2013, 9:55pm

on 05/01/13 at 11:28:35, Fritzlein wrote:
Thanks for helping keep Wikipedia up to date.
You're welcome.


on 05/01/13 at 11:28:35, Fritzlein wrote:
I reverted one edit, apparently not by you
Yeah I'm mattj2 on Wikipedia and mattj256 here.


on 05/01/13 at 11:28:35, Fritzlein wrote:
Only Omar [can update the championship page], although it looks like it has been done now.
Thanks Omar.  Now I have an officially verifiable source that Jean Daligault won.  I wouldn't want to offend the Wikipedians...

This is totally picky, but I noticed Fritzlein's Wikipedia edits list Daligault as from Great Britain but on this site it says France.  Which is correct?
(WC main page (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/wc/) and 2013 WC (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/wc/2013/) both say France, but Daligault's profile page (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/playerpage.cgi?u=chessandgo) says Great Britain.)
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by clyring on May 1st, 2013, 10:07pm
He is currently living in the UK, but is from France and is most definitely French.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by mattj256 on May 1st, 2013, 10:13pm

on 05/01/13 at 11:28:35, Fritzlein wrote:
I reverted one edit, apparently not by you, namely that the 2012 World Champion was hanzack, not Tarou Asou.
I totally didn't realize what happened.  First you made your own edit.  A random stranger, trying to be helpful and also trying to verify that your edit is correct, follows the link on the Wikipedia page to the Arimaa WC page, which lists the prime minister of Japan as the 2012 winner.  Behind the scenes on Wikipedia there's a systematic process where all non-minor edits are "policed" by volunteers.  

I would suggest that you sync the Arimaa WC page with the Wikipedia page.  Otherwise I might have to start a flame war with you on Wikipedia for doing "original research." :)
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Arimabuff on May 4th, 2013, 1:53pm

on 05/01/13 at 15:10:41, Fritzlein wrote:
I didn't intend a double meaning I don't know what two meanings you are thinking of.  What I meant was that the Arimaa Community shouldn't participate in dragging down Tarou Asou's name just because some joker entered that as a fake name for his account.

Here is my thought experiment:  If someone created a new account on arimaa.com and entered my name for his account to be funny, would I want folks to call him "Fritz Juhnke"?  No, I wouldn't.  On the contrary, I would be glad if everyone in the community called him by some other name instead of by my name.  I don't think we can or should require people to give their real names on arimaa.com, but having said that, it would be ridiculous to let anonymous jokers force us to misuse the names of real people.

I know for a fact that at least two other people in France    share both my first and my last name. I was even called by mistake by an ex-girlfriend of one of them. And yet Dudek is a good old Polish name. The phone book of Warsaw alone has hundreds of them; I checked.

I imagine that there must be hundreds of "Jean Dupont"s in France... just to give an example.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by Hippo on May 4th, 2013, 4:27pm

on 05/04/13 at 13:53:52, Arimabuff wrote:
I know for a fact that at least two other people in France    share both my first and my last name. I was even called by mistake by an ex-girlfriend of one of them. And yet Dudek is a good old Polish name. The phone book of Warsaw alone has hundreds of them; I checked.

I imagine that there must be hundreds of "Jean Dupont"s in France... just to give an example.


I think Patrik Dudek is good Czech name as well even when Patrik is not that common. And Patrick is probably not used at all. ... I would bet this is more common combination that mine, except I know I am witnessing mine ... yes, I am right ... simple search given several Patrik Dudek's ...
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by chessandgo on May 6th, 2013, 1:00pm
I was traveling this week-end and could not listen to Omar's podcats live. Is there a way to get it now? The link in the gameroom juste points to a finished dummy game.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by clyring on May 6th, 2013, 3:29pm
The recording was uploaded at http://arimaa.com/arimaa/ftp/filemanager/filemanager.php as 'awards_ceremony.mp3' in the 2013 WC folder.
Title: Re: 2013 World Championship
Post by chessandgo on May 7th, 2013, 9:00am
Thanks!


Arimaa Forum » Powered by YaBB 1 Gold - SP 1.3.1!
YaBB © 2000-2003. All Rights Reserved.